Andrew Wesley Dent was one of Australia’s most respected accident and emergency surgeons and an aid worker committed to humanitarian work in the third world. Born in Warragul, Victoria on 1 February 1955, he was the fourth child and third son of Ronald William Dent an engineer and his wife Dulcie Rose née Weatherhead, the daughter of a teacher. Educated at Warrangul High School and Wesley College in Melbourne, he then enrolled at the University of Melbourne initially at Queen’s College. He then proceeded to the University Medical School and trained at St Vincent’s Hospital. After graduating with first class honours in 1979, he travelled to Calcutta in 1980 and worked with Mother Theresa at the Missionaries of Charity – the start of his lifelong commitment to medical care in developing countries. In 1981 he came to the UK and did house jobs in casualty at the North Middlesex Hospital, London and in orthopaedics at St James’ Hospital, Balham. Two years later he moved to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn where he worked with S G Thompson as a general surgeon before finishing his training at the Peterborough District Hospital from 1983 to 1985 under J H Hall and C J S Kent. He passed the fellowship in 1985 and moved to a mission hospital in Shishong in Cameroon where he spent many years as the only qualified surgeon in a small team. While there he did his best to introduce modern medical practice and worked tirelessly to fundraise for what was basically a very under resourced hospital. In 1986 when the volcanic Lake Nyos released a deadly cloud of gases, he was the first doctor on the scene of the disaster which eventually killed about 1700 people. After spending a short time in Australia for the birth of his first son, he moved to Raboul, New Guinea. Here the town was almost completely destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption in 1994 and his research in tropical medicine was cut short. His wife and children were evacuated by the RAAF but he stayed on to give much needed medical aid before returning to Australia in 1995. He was appointed Director of Emergency at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, became a member of the Australian College of Tropical Medicine and a fellow of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine. He established the Emergency Practice Innovation Centre at St Vincent’s and streamlined the accident and emergency services. He was particularly keen to provide a compassionate service and a colleague Guy Sansom, who worked with him for 15 years, said that “He truly believed that the unwashed and the unloved are just as deserving as anyone else is to good quality care…..he just reminded us that everyone deserves a chance.” Active in the training of younger doctors and the author of numerous research papers and practice manuals, he became an associate professor at Melbourne University. He passed a master’s degree in public health and continued to visit New Guinea frequently, establishing the Pacific Health Foundation to ensure that his work continued. In 2008 he was admitted to the Order of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine. While working on a kibbutz in Israel in 1977 he met Blandine Janot, she was the daughter of the French constitutional lawyer and politician Raymond Janot. They married in 1978 and had two sons Christian and Stephan. Outside medicine he enjoyed playing golf, squash and cricket. The day after he was named in the Queen’s Birthday honours, he died of colon cancer on 10 June 2008, aged 53, survived by his wife and family.